


goodbye cruel summer

by inverse



Series: an accumulation of inevitabilities [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1549427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverse/pseuds/inverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>years on, they meet again. change and the passage of time are the only constants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	goodbye cruel summer

Aomine fathered a son when he was twenty-two, but he was never around for it much. He never married the woman because it was actually kind of an accident and they never had much of a relationship anyway. Nonetheless she kept the child and was happy to let him visit on the off-season. The child took her surname. “You’re great with kids,” she would tell him, serving him iced tea while he played peek-a-boo with the three-year-old, as if she were a housewife and he were a neighbour passing by with groceries to share. “I can barely get him to sit down. He loves it when you come around.”

The kid had his monolidded small eyes and her round face. It wasn’t a very nice-looking face, that was for sure. He was a cute kid, though, a cheerful kid who liked the outdoors, just like how Aomine was when he was a child. Mother and son moved away some time after he decided to settle down in the US for a while, getting tossed around like a hot potato by several NBA teams which couldn’t decide if they wanted him. That was how they lost contact with one another. By the time he remembered that he still had her number and called back amidst a long, trying period of contract negotiations, the line had gone dead. She’d changed it.

 

*

 

He met Kise again when he was back in Japan, finally retired from the game after struggling with a shoulder injury that just never seemed to get better, even three surgeries later. A number of teams from the national league had approached him with the intent to hire him as a coach, and most of them were offering him very handsome remuneration – which was of course nothing much compared to what he earned as a professional player in America – but he wasn’t really the kind of person to do things for the money, and he didn’t think he could bear being on the court without actually being able to play. He was still better than most, of course, but he just couldn’t get past the mental hurdle of not being able to play like he used to, an Aomine who was eternally in his early to mid-twenties and at peak form. So he said no, for the time being.

In truth he had actually been in contact with a private investigator. The older one got, the starker the realisation that life actually really revolved around the nuclear family. Everyone had their own lives and those lives were self-contained in those little units. If you stayed single you stayed single alone. Whatever few friends he had got married, like Momoi, who forgot all about Kuroko – who never reciprocated anyway – when she went to university, and then had five thousand kids with her chemical engineering husband. His parents had asked him when he was going to settle down, if he’d met any nice girls in the US, but he figured that he couldn’t tell them about the alcohol-fuelled poolside NBA cheerleader orgies. He’d only taken part twice, decidedly, invited each time by the same teammate, but they’d have heart attacks anyway. Long story short, it was just him now, and some part of him inexplicably wanted to make up for being the irresponsible, absent parent now that his career was on hiatus. The kid would be thirteen now, and Aomine knew literally nothing about him other than his name – what he looked like now, if he was as tall and as good at basketball as Aomine was when he was thirteen, if he had shit grades, which wouldn’t actually be a surprise at all given the average IQ of both his parents. If he was calling someone else his father these days. Maybe his mother had gotten married. Not that Aomine really cared about that too much. It just didn’t make sense not to want any sort of support, all these years.

Anyway – Kise. Aomine was exiting an izakaya along a street in Roppongi when he bumped into a crowd that was entering. “Sorry,” he mumbled, stepping back to let a woman walk past him, then took a double-take at the face of her partner. There were a few seconds of awkward recollection as they stared at each other, trying to recall where they’d seen a younger version of that face before. Then Kise drew in a gasp of recognition; he ducked into the entrance and called, “Micchan, go ahead with the rest, I’ll be with you guys real quick,” then turned back to Aomine and said, “Aominecchi, when did you come back?”

“Just,” replied Aomine, struck all at once with a flood of memories and sensations of camaraderie and familiarity and I-once-knew-you that felt oddly misplaced and disjunct with the sudden, unplanned reunion, as if with a stranger. He didn’t say anything much; Kise’s hands were already working quick in the folds of his wallet, looking for what might be a name card. Underneath the yellow lamps that lit up the signboard of the izakaya his face was badly illuminated, at once stark angles and planes of light and shadow, but it was plain that he was just as good-looking as before, or even moreso, his features becoming more distinctive with age – eyes more deep-set, nose more defined, jaw stronger.

“Here,” he said, looking up, pressing what was indeed a name card into the palm of Aomine’s hand. “Call me sometime. We should catch up.” Then he disappeared into the restaurant, but not before without giving Aomine a wink, one that was obviously well-practised and the result of fine honing over the years. All the elements were there, the winsomeness, charm, timing, the slight tilt of head that accompanied; if winks were professionally judged this would have gotten a textbook 10/10, but somehow it was lacking the earnestness of fifteen-year-old Kise trying too hard to please. And if they were still fifteen Aomine would have followed that up with a scathing “That’s gross” – maybe now it should be “You’re way too old for this” – but he knew better.

 

*

 

Kise’s apartment was in the same neighbourhood as the izakaya where they bumped into each other that night. It was one of the penthouse units of a block of very exclusive condominiums, and on the way up Aomine shared the lift with someone he vaguely recognised as a celebrated primetime talk show host.

Kise seemed like he had barely gotten home when Aomine rang the doorbell, judging by the crisp white shirt – rolled up to his elbows – dark grey woollen slacks, and the lingering smell of cologne. There was a matching jacket slung over the back of the couch in the middle of the very vast, very empty living room. If Aomine cared about his image he would have felt criminally underdressed in his plain old black v-neck and jeans. It was just past 9 p.m. and the first thing that Kise asked after he closed the door behind Aomine was, “Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Whisky? A gin and tonic?”

“Beer,” Aomine said on reflex, and Kise chuckled. It felt as if it was targeted at Aomine’s unchanged, unsophisticated nature, a subtle “you still haven’t changed”.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, disappearing behind the sizeable home bar.

The place was large, sparsely decorated with pieces of complementary, classy-looking furniture that had obviously been chosen by an interior designer, given Kise’s kitschy taste in things. It hardly looked lived-in and Aomine wondered how much time Kise actually spent at home. Perhaps it was a new acquisition. Aomine had a lot of questions – not dying to have them answered, but he was curious all the same. He stood, hands in his pockets, looking out the stretch of tall glass that laid bare Roppongi’s glittering insides – towering buildings with their jewel lights, mansions glowing yellow from within.

The day after he’d ran into Kise, he’d stared, the last of his fast food lunch settling in the bottom of his stomach, at the number on Kise’s name card. He decided it would be better to text since a non-reply was better than a dial tone that went on forever or an outright verbal rejection, just in case he’d hallucinated the entire exchange and got the wrong person, or in case Kise had turned into a gigantic asshole who felt completely fine screwing with people, but everything turned out alright and Kise texted back a few hours later with a date and time and address and a couple of very enthusiastic-sounding exclamation marks. He’d outgrown the smileys. So now, five days later, Aomine was standing in his living room, on the plush snowy-white carpet, hands in his pockets, a thousand thoughts going through his head.

“Catch,” said Kise, reappearing and tossing a can of beer in Aomine’s direction. “Sit down.”

“On the carpet?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“It doesn’t seem like you’re here often,” Aomine said, pulling back the tab on the can. It fizzed dangerously.

“You can tell?” Kise replied, raising an eyebrow, leaning sideways against the glass, one leg drawn towards himself, the other outstretched. That was all that was between him and the nothingness outside – that pane of reinforced glass. He pulled out a pack of menthols and a lighter from a pocket, tilting the cigarettes towards Aomine.

“No, thanks,” Aomine said, eyeing the cigarettes with suspicion. “I thought you didn’t use to smoke,” he continued. About ten years ago, that was. Kise shrugged.

“Just socially,” he replied, lighting up, then inhaling. The smoke escaped from between his lips a heavy mass, a thick, dense cloud, almost as if he were sighing. He rested his head against the glass now, shifting, like a big cat trying to get its bearings on a rather uncomfortable surface. “But you’re right. It’s become quite a frequent occurrence lately. It might turn habitual.” He reached towards a nearby coffee table for an ashtray and tapped the cigarette lightly against its gleaming porcelain edge. “What about you? Why are you back? You retired?”

As much as he’d been thinking about it for the past few months, Aomine realised that he wasn’t ready to talk about it. The answer that came out of his mouth was all dried up, like it’d died in his throat. “I injured my shoulder a while ago. It never really got better. My old team didn’t want to renew my contract, so I decided to take a break.”

“I figured. You look like you still have a few more years in you, you wouldn’t have quit just like that. And you always looked like the type who wouldn’t stop playing basketball until they were headed for the nursing home, anyway.” Kise regarded him, his gaze cynical and piercing. Aomine felt like there was a judgment call behind that. “Never going to play again? Ever?”

“I’m still considering,” Aomine said uncomfortably. The reality would probably never sink in. He was angry the first time he went under the knife, but by the time the third surgery came around he’d shifted mostly into a quiet, dissonant acceptance. “What about you?”

“Me? Are you asking about basketball?” Kise asked, eyebrows shooting up. “Don’t be ridiculous, Aominecchi, I haven’t played since high school.”

“Whatever you’re doing now, I meant. I’m not an idiot, Kise.”

“Does full-time socialiser count as a job description?” He took a swig from his beer and frowned thoughtfully, glancing out towards the cityscape and tapping his index finger against his cigarette to get rid of the ashes. “I don’t stay home a lot, it’s quiet. Like the other night we met, just out connecting with people who want to get to know you. It doesn’t hurt to know more people. Although, of course, a lot of them don’t make impressions. When was it that you left? A couple years after high school? You should have seen when I snagged that role in _Summer Love Cordial_ , against Matsumoto Nanami. My face was all over Harajuku. It was up there on Shibuya 109 for a couple of months, too. And then that snowballed into a lot of other offers, acting, modelling, advertising, whatever. I did everything so that I could prove to people that I could do anything. Just for fun. I don’t suppose you knew I endorsed Cartier once? Yeah. So now I get to choose what I want to do – only the projects I’m really interested in. Though other than that nothing much has changed. You just get so tired of people fawning over you, and it’s not just limited to the girls who throw themselves at you,” he ended, sounding bored, looking into the distance as if recalling a very particular example of it. His reflection in the glass was unclear and for a moment it seemed like he was younger.

 

*

 

They talked some more about what they did over the years. Mostly it was Kise moving the conversation along. Aomine didn’t say anything about why he was really back. He did mention he was living out of a rented apartment, though, when Kise asked – a temporary solution to the question of whether he was going to stay for the long term. There really wasn’t much else to talk about because they no longer had much in common; like Aomine, Kise had fallen out of touch with a lot of the people they used to know, though his face did light up a little at the basketball talk. “I always wondered what I’d be doing now if I ever went pro,” he commented, tucking a few stray strands behind his ear. It seemed like the earring that he used to wear in high school was gone now, but the scar was still there, just barely visible. “It’s so crazy that it used to be such a huge part of my life for a while, but I haven’t even entertained the thought of picking up a ball in years. I don’t think any one of us actually loved the sport like you did. It was just something that we happened to be good at.”

Aomine fiddled with the tab of his can, pushing it back and forth with one finger. “I don’t think we talked about this. Did you ever consider it seriously, even for one second?”

“Nah. Doing one thing for that long, it gets boring. Remember the last Inter High, in our last year of high school? I think that was when I felt it was time to start thinking about something else.”

“Yet here you are.”

Kise gave him a derisive snort, then stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette before lighting another one. “You know, I never thought I’d meet you again,” he said, staring at Aomine as if he was an apparition. “That was why it took me so long to recognise you that night and I think it would’ve been the same for everyone else. It’s just been so long that I’d forgotten about everything.”

Like his parents, Kise was curious about his marital status, or lack thereof. Again, Aomine dodged the question and fired it right back, warily questioning Kise’s status as an overly-eligible bachelor. The sight of Kise’s screaming, delirious fans lining up from the back of the gym all the way to the front of the school gate when they were in middle school was something he’d probably never forget for the rest of his life. Kise, however, just took another puff before giving him a surprising, almost unpleasant answer.

“Everyone leaves you in the end, Aominecchi,” he smiled. It was a smile without any humour in it, and Aomine couldn’t remember when the last time he saw Kise with an expression like that was. Kise looked straight at Aomine from behind his immaculately styled bangs, no doubt a designer effort. “Your parents, they go first. Your relatives. Your siblings leave you to start their own families. By the time your fourth girlfriend in four years breaks up with you you’re wondering why you even try. Your friends, schoolmates, upperclassmen, everyone that you used to know, they start becoming the centre of their own universes. It’s disappointing, isn’t it? Cruel, even. But it’s something that happens.” _Nobody wants you for you,_ was the unsaid assertion.

For some time now Aomine had been feeling a certain kind of unease and it wasn’t until then that he realised the source of the dissonance. The person sitting in front of him was and wasn’t Kise at the same time. Sure, time changed people, but if he were to be honest, he wasn’t expecting an answer like that at all. Somehow it explained a lot of the actions he found odd, coming from Kise – the nonchalance, the cool, almost blasé detachment of some of his overly-rehearsed gestures, the remaining one percent of what felt like a false signal of sincerity, in case the other party felt truly interested in engaging – what, Aomine now recalled, was behind that gasp of surprise when they first bumped into each other again, a reaction that most people couldn’t fake.

“Nothing to say? That’s so unlike you.”

“Are you trying to provoke me into saying something? What should I be saying?”

“No, I don’t know,” Kise shrugged, “you just used to have something to say about everything. Things that were not necessarily nice. I haven’t heard half a swear word from you since we started talking. Has anyone told you you’ve become wearier? Momocchi?”

“She’s too busy taking care of her football team of children to see me.”

“Well, now you know.”

Aomine downed the last of his beer, eyes fixed on a neighbouring block of apartments, and thought he’d ask Kise if he could have another one. Behind a set of linen curtains the silhouette of a woman disappeared into an adjacent room. He tore his gaze away from the glowing depths of the city, about to ask Kise if he could raid his minibar, when Kise interrupted him before he could say anything.

“Oh yes,” he said, the proclamation casual, like an afterthought. “I have a pilot’s licence now, Aominecchi. For small aircraft only, of course. I acquired it quite a while ago, actually, but I don’t think you knew that.” He looked straight at Aomine through the cloud of smoke he exhaled and his eyes were like beacons beneath hooded lids. “Take you for a ride sometime.”

When there was nothing left and everything had faded away, your age, your looks, the old physical markers by which you used to identify each other, even old personality traits, when there was a gaping void of nothingness from then till now, what remained was simply collective memory, and the lingering question of whether such collective memory was still part of you. Whether it could still serve as a bridge. When that is but a mere fraction of your cumulative experiences, blurred and buried under other things sharper, more vivid, more recent, more painful, it’s difficult. It’s difficult when you are lonely in different ways. It’s difficult when one of you, no matter how hard you search, can’t find anyone who sees what you see, and when the other one of you is so absorbed in your own circumstances. There is no nexus, and you are not what the other is looking for. But you know what they say about misery loving company. It’s precisely because you are both so equally alone that there is a faint hope that finally, somehow, somebody understands what you are saying.

**Author's Note:**

> this is really genfic disguised as slashfic. in my mind there are separate themes for each character throughout the canon -- for kise it is the pushing of the boundaries of his many abilities; for aomine it is his ego. this piece, like the next few instalments in this series that will follow, is a rational projection of these themes, set in the distant future. the pessimism is all mine.
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> [here is a loosely-related kise-centric prequel of sorts.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1563944)  
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